Egonomics
Work on the self—the quest for a path, the invention of a life, or the search for authenticity—is offered as an antidote to the anxiety-provoking uncertainties of a new economic and social order. It is this newly emerging self—the self perennially at work on itself and the self labored over by the self—that I call the belabored self.
Micki McGee • Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life
When you choose to skip the gym or procrastinate on a project, you're not just being lazy.
You're prioritizing the desires of your current self over the needs of your future self. You're essentially saying, "I don't care about that other person's problems."
But here's the
The center of our conscious life is called ego. It has two concurrent characteristics: It is functional in that it is the strong grounded activating principle by which we make intellectual assessments and judgments, show feelings appropriately, and relate skillfully to other people. It can also be neurotic when it becomes attached, addicted, dualis
... See moreDavid Richo • How to Be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration
As Micki McGee argues, it was a notion that “fused religious and psychological discourses.… Work on the self—the quest for a path, the invention of a life, or the search for authenticity—is offered as an antidote to the anxiety-provoking uncertainties of a new economic and social order.29 McGee calls the subject that is produced by these discourses
... See moreRosalind Gill • Confidence Culture
The ego is incapable of transcending the dualistic level, of bringing into harmony the truth of both sides, as it were. Therefore it cannot find solutions and is perpetually trapped and anxious. Thus, an ego identification automatically brings fear of life in its wake.